I Wanna Hold Your Hand

I Wanna Hold Your Hand by the young first-time feature director Robert Zemeckis is officially the best non-documentary Beatles movie that does not actually feature The Beatles. (So A Hard Day's Night and Help! are out of the competition). No -- instead of being one of those Beatles bios this is actually about the fans and the frenzy the mop-topped boys caused on their first visit to the colonies. And hey, their backs, knees and shadows appear, as do some of their songs! Emerging in 1978 as part of a short wave of youthful period comedies that were pushed along by the success of National Lampoon’s Animal House (the genre hitting box office gold with Porky’s and critical & artistic silver with Diner), I Wanna Hold Your Hand was actually the first and best of many would-be biographies, re-imaginings and Beatles origin stories, including The Birth of The Beatles, The Hours and The Times, Backbeat and Nowhere Boy. Since it’s really just a sweet tribute to Beatlemania and the innocence of the era it may be the least ambitious, but it comes the closest to hitting its mark.

In February of 1964, as The Beatles first touch down in America, four young women from New Jersey make their way to Manhattan to try and see them perform live on The Ed Sullivan Show. Wannabe journalist Grace (Theresa Saldana) is a big fan but her pushy friend Rosie (Wendie Jo Sperber) is psychotic about the band. They are joined in their adventure by Janis (Susan Kendall Newman, Paul’s daughter), who prefers folk music to rock & roll (she’s going along just to put up a folkie protest) and Pam (Nancy Allen), only a casual fan, more excited about her upcoming marriage. They have an idea to rent a limo and try to drive The Beatles to the show, but they settle for a hearse, driven by their shy friend, the undertaker’s son, Larry (Marc McClure, who also that year would play Jimmy Olsen in the Christopher Reeve Superman movie). Along the way they also pick up the cynical tough kid, Tony (Bobby Di Cicco), who is less about The Beatles and more into bedding the girls. The gang get split up and end up in adventures and compromising positions around The Beatles’ hotel and The Ed Sullivan Theater. Rosie meets her male equal in obnoxious Beatles obsession, the hotel’s bellboy, Richard "Ringo" Klaus (Eddie Deezen). Think of it as a good version of what Detroit Rock City was trying to do -- or how about The HangoverLite.